Editorial: 2022 brings new urgency to fix age-old problems

New Year's Eve 2021 ball drop

The 2022 sign that will be lit on top of a building on New Year's Eve is displayed in Times Square, New York, Monday, Dec. 20, 2021. Crowds will once again fill New York's Times Square this New Year's Eve, with proof of COVID-19 vaccination required for revelers who want to watch the ball drop in person, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)AP

For the second year in a row, Oregonians have had to cope with once-in-a-century crises. The climate catastrophes of 2021 and the delta-driven resurgence of the pandemic thrust the state, elected officials and local communities into responding to life-or-death emergencies rather than focusing on a return to normal. Without a doubt, such turmoil necessarily curtailed ambitions and capacity for what could be accomplished in 2021.

But as rare and punishing as these events were, they should not be used as excuses for the bumbling execution, unfulfilled promises and profound dysfunction that the crises fully exposed. The state’s ongoing backlog in processing millions in rent assistance to tenants facing possible eviction showed, once again, a state agency flummoxed by technology and unable to competently fulfill a critical mission. Multnomah County’s flawed management of the multi-agency response to last June’s historic heat wave showed, once again, insufficient oversight of contractors and poor coordination with agencies needed to deliver key services to residents. The city’s failure to vet the problematic recipient chosen to provide cooling units to low-income Portlanders showed, once again, a city where financial stewardship is an afterthought.

It wasn’t just new crises where leaders stumbled. Particularly at a local level, the lack of progress ­on entrenched problems has been demoralizing, from homelessness to a metastasizing gun violence epidemic to enacting needed police reforms. Voters have provided tools and resources – authorizing the creation of a new police oversight commission, for instance, and approving a new tax to pay for homeless services. But they cannot make up for the missing ingredients of leadership and execution.

2022 must be a year of fixing broken systems, delivering on promises and instilling confidence that our public agencies will operate with proficiency and accountability – regardless of whatever new crisis comes our way.

To be sure, there are bright spots to build on. In Portland, the careful rollout of the Portland Street Response program, which sends a paramedic and mental health worker to respond to select 911 calls involving homeless people, is being expanded citywide. Importantly, after reviewing the pilot program, city officials are seeking to add the authority to respond to calls involving unarmed people in suicidal crisis to their portfolio. New state laws have increased reporting requirements on police misconduct and mandated more transparency for the public. On housing, the Legislature approved changes to make more land available for affordable housing development in order to spur more building. Both Multnomah County and the city of Portland plan to modestly increase the number of outdoor villages or alternative shelters for the thousands of homeless people living on the streets in and around Portland.

Oregon must build on this momentum. Below is a list of the priorities we believe should guide the state in 2022.

Strong executive leadership at all levels of government: Oregon will elect a new governor in November, with Gov. Kate Brown unable to run for re-election due to term limits. With several experienced or notable candidates already in the running, Oregonians should look closely at who brings the vision, management skills and commitment to eradicating the complacency that has permeated state government for years. That person must demonstrate a clear understanding of what it means to create a culture of accountability – one in which asking questions, setting benchmarks and confirming follow-through are regular habits of any agency. Our next governor also must serve the needs of both urban and rural Oregon, champion the removal of racist practices and attitudes from our institutions, and respect the voice of voters, by enacting meaningful campaign finance reform and empowering those outside the two-party system.

Multnomah County will see a new county executive as current chair Deborah Kafoury is also term-limited out. County residents should closely evaluate candidates’ approach to homelessness and whether they come with specific solutions for how to use the millions in new revenue that taxpayers have provided.

While two Portland city commissioners will be up for re-election, the bigger issue expected to be on the ballot is a measure to scrap the city’s anachronistic, ineffective, unrepresentative, discriminatory, fatally flawed commission form of government in favor of one with a professional city manager or other similar system. All eyes are on the city’s charter commission which is reviewing possible options. Portland voters should make their preference known now that ensuring a better future for the city unquestionably requires changing our form of government.

Sharpen our COVID-19 priorities: COVID-19, now in the omicron stage of the pandemic, isn’t going away anytime soon. While we should not ignore its risks, we should also recognize that vaccines and new therapies have changed the landscape from the early days when heavy-handed restrictions seemed the only recourse. First, keeping schools open for in-person instruction and investing in students’ success must be the state’s top priority. The state was among the last in the country to bring kids back to school and their prolonged isolation has shown up in significant academic, behavioral and social problems. While staffing shortages have hampered the ability to surround kids with the supports they need, districts and the state must figure out how to harness the more than $1 billion in federal funding available for students to help them regain their way and reach their potential.

Second, elected officials, business owners, government workers, church leaders and community groups should encourage everyone to be vaccinated and boosted and provide easy opportunities to do so. The science is clear. These shots help prevent COVID-19 infection and mitigate the severity of the disease for those who do contract it.

And finally, in navigating whatever new variant comes our way, state and local health officials should look to temporary rules and limited restrictions wherever possible to achieve their public health goals. Pandemic fatigue is real and state mandates that provide no clear path for removing restrictions are engendering resentment and mistrust. Transparency and temporary timeframes make more sense both logically and psychologically.

Prepare Oregon for climate disasters: Climate change is here and it is killing Oregonians. Last summer’s triple-digit, three-day heat wave was one of the deadliest natural disasters in state history. A severe cold snap and windstorm last winter left families throughout the Willamette Valley without power for days. Wildfires and the smoke they generate pose another serious threat, as the Labor Day blazes that ripped through Oregon in 2020 showed.

While the state has taken significant steps to address wildfire preparation and limit outdoor work in extreme temperatures, state and local communities need robust disaster planning that looks at shoring up the power grid while developing alternative power sources and creating neighborhood-based emergency strategies. Agencies should examine and mitigate the disparate impacts of climate disasters on low-income neighborhoods that lack the amenities that can help make such events survivable. Community members, too, must be part of the effort, both in their personal preparations and to help support one another. Such efforts will pay off not only for weather-related events, but for the massive subduction zone earthquake that’s predicted to someday hit the West Coast.

At the same time, Oregon should accelerate its progress toward lowering carbon emissions by activating tolls in highly-congested areas and incentivizing far greater adoption of electric vehicles by government and individuals. While we continue to support the project to add merging lanes at the Rose Quarter to ease congestion on Interstate 5 – a critical corridor for the entire West Coast – the state should look at tolling and make investments to support the surrounding Albina neighborhood.

Treat mental health and addiction as the public health crisis it is: The profound shortage of services for those needing mental health counseling, addiction treatment and recovery support highlights, once again, Oregon’s shamefully low investment in such vital resources. We need a massive investment in programs for training a behavioral health and addiction counseling workforce, supporting the agencies that provide such services and ensuring that employees get a wage that shows how critical and valued this work is. While a legislative proposal last year to tax the beer and alcohol industry was far too high, we support a rational new tax specifically to support addiction and recovery services. The connections between addiction and so many other problems in our community demand that we stop ignoring this health crisis. In addition, state officials and Oregonians should closely watch the implementation of Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs and called for expanding treatment options. Lax ticketing and the large number of people simply ignoring such citations rather than seeking help are worrisome signs of the measure’s effectiveness.

End our housing crisis: Considering Oregon is severely underbuilt for its population, an end won’t come anytime soon. But Oregonians should press government on all levels to demonstrate how they will cut through the bureaucracy and barriers that have made housing too rare and expensive. We need agencies to pair bond dollars with other financing sources more efficiently to produce public housing for less than the $400,000 per unit projects that are all too common. We need residents of single-family neighborhoods to understand the connection between opposing construction of duplexes and multi-family buildings with the increasing homelessness surrounding them. And we need more of the millions that taxpayers have provided to go toward emergency shelter that both connects people with services and helps get them off the streets.

Commit to public safety and police reform: Portland has lost too much time in pitched battles over whether and how much to defund its police force. The record homicides, near-daily shootings and the city’s grim traffic fatality counts should have settled that question long ago. But while we need a well-resourced police force, we also need one that has the community’s trust and reflects its values. Portland officials must land a union contract that allows for greater accountability for officer misconduct. They must also show some solid progress on creating a police oversight commission ­– a move authorized more than a year ago by voters but has languished. And leaders must stop dancing around the gun violence crisis ripping through Portland, particularly in communities of color. Their delay in acknowledging that police must be part of the solution has cost lives.

Certainly, it’s anyone’s guess what 2022 has in store for Oregon. But the past two years have shown that a lack of reliable systems and leadership only sap the state’s ability to address what comes.

-The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board


Oregonian editorials
Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom. Members of the editorial board are Therese Bottomly, Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung and John Maher.
Members of the board meet regularly to determine our institutional stance on issues of the day. We publish editorials when we believe our unique perspective can lend clarity and influence an upcoming decision of great public interest. Editorials are opinion pieces and therefore different from news articles.
To respond to this editorial, submit an OpEd or a letter to the editor.
If you have questions about the opinion section, email Helen Jung, opinion editor, or call 503-294-7621.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.